Seesaw
by Phrenology of a Waffle
Summary: “'Gil,' she begins, her entire body against the lockers, 'show me that you can show your love for me, because I know I’m not the only one feeling things here.' AU WIP: CGR with resolved GSR.
1. Of Souls and Sins and Saints

Author's Note: Finally, the Document Manager works! (There is an Internet God!) Anyway, these chapters are longer than those in my other works, so brace yourself, enjoy, and read and review as you wish. This is my second (posted) CSI fanfiction, which contains spoilers for "Way to Go" (6x24), has a G-SR beginning with a CGR ending, and is a WIP.Oh yes, and I am looking for a CSI beta -- which means this puppy is going naked for now --, so if you are feeling kind, feel free to offer your services.(I didn't ask my friends because they have to deal with me too much as is.) And as always, thank you to the reviewers of my other works, whose continuous comments and criticism are a joy to read.

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Seesaw

Chapter One: Of Souls and Sins and Saints

He lies upon the duvet, stroking it curiously, and wears a blue, flower-patterned shirt, which irritates his nipples and looks awkward on his body. But he still smiles and still sinks lower into the duvet and mattress beneath, feeling his mind unhinge from him, his conscience drifting with it, which leaves a nagging pain in his stomach and an emptiness that has never been in that part of him.

Of course, he thinks, maybe he shouldn't ignore the pain or the emptiness that is infecting the rest of his being now. Maybe he should go immediately and forget about ever coming here, forget about freeing the rules and regulations that have been tethered to him for years upon years and even longer. He thinks this because he knows the pain could be something serious, because maybe the ache is from his soul trying to escape from inside his being and fly free to –

Ridiculous, the cynic within him interrupts, are the souls and spirits and saints. They are all lies to entrance the public, all creations for those seeking fabricated enlightenment and liberation. But his release is right here, his nirvana sitting within the walls of a simple bedroom. More specifically, a single bed belonging to a heartbreakingly single woman with only a heart to offer to a man of a similar position, whose singular goal for tonight has the imminent chance of being accomplished. Single, singular, and single again. The way his life has been for too long a time. It has always been one man eating one cold meal in one plain apartment, with nothing more and nothing less until now. He has always been and is still living a life tending to the death of others, and he knows that it is a disgusting yet enticing paradox just like him, just like religion and everything pertaining to it, just like what is happening here and now.

But should this even be happening? Is she the one he really loves? Or is it—?

"Grissom?" Her curious voice comes to him in uneven waves of sound that gradually become smooth like the smile brightening her features. "Ready?"

He stares at her, her brown eyes, her pale complexion, all of the physical attributes that have always called and never received an answer before tonight. "You're wearing that?" he asks, pointing to her thin, white shirt and lounge pants several sizes to large for her narrow figure. "Yes. Why, Mr. Grissom?" she inquires with a child-like-yet-somewhat-sardonic tone lacing her words. He shifts uncomfortably at the way her voice sounds, even with the sarcasm.

"So much for dressing for the mood, Miss Sidle," he says and smiles lightly, eyes lit with a dim glow. She doesn't notice how faint it is. She's just grateful it's there after so long. Too long.

"Oh fine. I'll 'dress for the mood'," she tells him and walks into the bathroom with a minute skip in her step, which causes another uncomfortable shift from him that she doesn't notice. It's not as if she is planning to wear anything for an extended period of time, anyway, and at least with the shirt and pants there is more fabric to rip from her body as his hands….

Maybe a shower wouldn't hurt – something cold to heal the ache of relationships past, something to refresh her and let her start anew – and maybe it wouldn't hurt to invite him to join her, either. But no, she reasons, as she pulls the over-sized clothing from her body. She wants to fantasize one last time before reality floods the scene like the wide, forceful streams of water hitting her everywhere now.

Oh, the irony, she thinks as the water streams push into her skin, that this could very easily be foreshadowing for later. And she laughs as the liquid falls away from her and weakly to the floor.  
---

She leaves the bathroom, her hair dry but her lips wet. The only thing separating his eyes from her naked body is a thin silk robe falling over her miniscule curves. "Hello again, Mr. Grissom," she huskily whispers as she kneels at the side of the bed and leans forward, her arms resting upon the duvet, hands clasped together. The only thought that comes to his mind is a child praying before falling into an innocent sleep. But the situation here is far from innocent. He manages to raise his eyebrows and open his mouth, but the words just will not come.

Sara stands, loosens the tie from her narrow waist, and lets the silky band fall to her sides. He sees just enough for the situation to be risqué and not enough for it to satisfy her. She climbs onto the bed and wraps around him in a somewhat compromising position, still wearing the robe but revealing what she wants to reveal, needs to reveal. She begins to graze at his neck with her lips, and he lolls his head back and….

"Sara, wait, please, stop," he asks in a moan. Ignoring his pleas, she raises her lips to his beard, the whiskers tickling the delicate pink flesh on them. "Sara, stop." Aggravation laces his words, and he is practically begging, the moaning now completely absent in his voice.

Sara decides instead to slip her hands to his trousers, where she fondles the edge of them and moves her fingers closer to the zipper and button.

"Sara!" he scolds as he removes her from him, moves from the bed, and stands, wiping his neck and beard roughly with his right hand. He can't do this. He knew from the suggestion of it that he couldn't, but he still came. Why not now, though? Was it the sight of her appearing to be innocent, her robe closed, her eyes looking upward to him like he was a god, or was it before, with the child-like tones gracing her voice and the tiny skip in her step that made him shift uncomfortably? He knows that this is wrong, that everything is wrong. He has to leave. He throws his glance to the door, the sight of the knob more alluring than the very young woman in front of him is. "Grissom, what's wrong?" There it is again, the innocent tone, that inquisitive voice that reminds him, plagues him for reasons still unknown.

"Sara, nothing's wrong. It's just…" he begins, and stops, looking toward her. What really is so awful about the situation at hand? He doesn't even know, and that is what horrifies him. There must be something wrong here. His thoughts are fretful; his heart thuds in his chest; his mouth fills with saliva, and his head is heavy with emptiness and pain. Everything about his appearance is crazed, wild. It feels different, and he's not sure if he likes it or not.

"Yes, Grissom?" she asks, the same hint of aggravation lacing her voice like it did his just minutes ago. She is sitting cross-legged on the bed, arms across her chest, a pout making her face appear even more youthful. "Sara, it's just that you and I both know this is wrong. Supervisor and subordinate – it goes against regulations. It's not meant to be, Sara. It's –"

"And you coming here doesn't go against that, go against you saying that 'it's not meant to be'? Gri – Gil, you came here, and that says enough, because it says you don't think what we are doing is wrong. I've been waiting too long for this, and I know you have as well. But now you're…willing to just pass up this opportunity we have to finally do what we've been waiting for? I can't believe you," she says harshly, glaring at him, tears in the corner of her eyes.

"Sara," he starts, and then looks at her. She has turned onto her stomach, face lying down on a pillow, her legs crossed daintily but protectively at the calves. He walks over to the edge of the bed and places a hand upon the small of her back, and he feels a shiver run through her under his fingertips. Whether it is repulsion or arousal, he's not quite sure. He moves his hand as she turns to face him. "What do you want to do now? Come on, Gil, we've been waiting years for this moment – years!" She gently places a hand on his cheek despite the chaotic excitement she feels coursing through her. It's all too thrilling to feel like this, to be in this frenzied and stimulated state.

He sighs with indecision – or was it pleasure? – and looks into her eyes. "Okay, Sara." He feels the words roll from his mouth into the open air, and the thought frightens him; now is not the time to rethink what he has already reconsidered, because her lips have repositioned themselves and are now grazing hungrily once more.

And later, as he lies there after what he came here to do has been done without a word spoken, he thinks only of prayers and souls and God and everything that might take away what could be his worse sin performed. "May God have mercy on my soul," he whispers into the night before turning to the woman beside him and swearing he sees the spirit of another crying in the corner.


	2. With Friends and Feelings and Faults

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in updating, but I didn't post this chapter sooner because, well, I'm a bit dubious on my love for it. I like all my writing, but this chapter – I just don't know. Anyway, thank you to the reviewers (supposedly, some of you saw my "rant"): lemonjelly, ibreak4csi, lijep, Crazy Abby, and soliz. Please enjoy, and reviews with praise and/or concrit are accepted gratefully. (By the way, this is still unbeta'd, so yet another partially, grammatically naked chapter (I _do_ use MS Word) comes to you.)

Disclaimer (for both chapters): Keep it, Jerry, all of it. I'm doing this to vent, not make profit, and honestly, at this point, I don't need to own the show to know that I could've written a better finale.

Spoilers: A major one from "Way to Go" (6x24). I've warned you.

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Chapter Two: With Friends and Feelings and Faults

He's possessed.

He must be, he thinks, because no sane man would risk what he held and still holds dear to his heart for more years than he'd like to count – but counts anyway to pass the time when he sits alone at home with his heart in his hand. And only for human contact, the touch of a being flawed like himself, only someone not as sinful, not as terrible and vile and disgusting. Someone younger and more innocent and more like – more like a child than he ever was.

God, a child. She's practically a child, with the smooth, pale skin and curious eyes, with the adorable gap between her teeth and brown hair that falls in front of those eyes when she attempts to assemble a puzzle that needs to be solved. But maybe – maybe that little girl is actually a woman with silky, milky dermis and interrogative eyes, with the flaw in her teeth and auburn hair that falls in front of those investigative eyes as she sits atop of him topless and does what she's wanted to do for so long, the scream welling in her throat and the heat emanating from her pores on her skin now shiny with sweat and taut with the compromising position she has assumed. And as she places her hands on his chest – fingers now long and immaculate but once short and grimy – with the nails still bitten nervously, he feels his old, creaky lungs inhale sharply and crackle as the stale air is then released painfully. It's hard to breathe, and for a fleeting moment he thinks that maybe he should just stop because is life really worth living after committing such a heinous act and what is she doing because he feels like he's going to burst and cause an explosion that's as loud as the scream he feels coming to his –

"Grissom?" sounds an inquiring voice, causing him to come to his wits and to look right into Catherine's brilliant blue eyes and shining smile. "Are you okay?" There's a concerned tone in her voice, and in her eyes, he sees the worry not of a mother but of a friend for another friend. "Yeah, thanks," he says, wondering what she must have thought when she walked into his office and saw him in whatever position he had taken.

She sits on the corner of his desk, as custom, and turns toward him. There is a silence, but it's comfortable, although he has a feeling that the chance of that changing is imminent. He wants to tell her, needs to tell her, but he doesn't want to see her reaction. "Catherine, I…"

She looks inquiringly at him, like she has been the entire time that she's been there with him, her entire career there. Her eyes are coolly investigative, always scrutinizing whatever lies before her, always searching for that one clue that will solve the case. They follow unevenly elevated paths of crime, moving up and down, like a seesaw, he supposes, rising and falling with feelings and thoughts, and moving in sync with the case. And every so often she allows those eyes and her mind to drift from the matter at hand onto and into personal affairs and to somehow bring issues that are supposed to lie at home into work, falling from that seesaw of her professional world of death and onto the one of external life. It irritates him, yes, but at least she brings some of the outer world, with tears of happiness and the complacent sighs of children, into an occupation where cries that are cried are of sorrow and often done too often and too loudly as well. She brings this into a career where children who are abused, exploited, and disposed lie on metal tables, their pale bodies not shivering from the cool metal and their mouths not forming complaints of the frigidity and their feet not walking to the large metal door which leads them into more rooms that are just as cold – if not more cold – emotionally but not physically.

But they would not care about that if they were able to rise from that freezing metal table and walk out of that cold, cold room because their bodies would be aware of the warm air and would embrace it while their minds would be naïve to the emotionally damp and dark atmosphere surrounding them and everyone else in the building. Even her, except she is able to keep most of the chill out of her mind because she has those warm memories that seem to flame compared to what surrounds her most of the day. But not always. No, sometimes that iciness will enter her mind, and she will cry at the pain of it, that numbing headache that she can, ironically enough, feel. He reasons that this is the only professional where a person can be numb emotionally and also be able to feel every emotion that passes through that person's body. But maybe Catherine will tell him that stripping is also a career where a person can do the same.

And he wouldn't mind going into the past and saving her from that exploitation, that career she probably considered and still considers just as grotesque, only to have her stand before him in her uniform and strip seductively, visible curves becoming more visible and that indifference he saw in her eyes when he first saw her defrosting in the heat of her passionate admiration to him for saving her. He imagines her naked body in all its glory and does not feel dirty or sinful. But why then, he asks himself, does he feel so disgusting and sinful when he imagines –

"Grissom, you've got to stop doing that. I'm all for your reflectivity, but don't you think you're taking a bit far?" There she is again, Catherine, her voice penetrating those thoughts, those thoughts he thinks when counting the years that he has loved his greatest love isn't enough, when counting the hundreds dead bodies and recounting the hundreds disturbing scenes does not assuage the loneliness he feels most nights.

He holds his heart – his job, his love – to his chest where his heart should be but isn't because he wants – no, needs – to actually hold what is dear to him. He cannot just let it lie within him until all of it comes spilling from him when the loneliness and the reality overflow the boundaries of his body, when it becomes too much to bear.

Maybe, he thinks, what lives within this building is reality, and maybe what she brings into the building on the heels of her shoes and the rest of her body is reality, too, but the other half of it. He has a harsh reality, the burning reality whose existence he would like to deny, while she brings in the soft, flowing one, like the robe from which Sara stripped, revealing –

"Damnit!" he yells, the thought severed but not completely forgotten. Catherine jumps a little at the loud outburst, her face becoming slightly more serious, somewhat more drawn like his.

"Grissom, what's wrong?" she asks in a compassionate tone, and it angers him even more. This is completely out-of-character for him. Usually composed, calm, and thoughtful, now raging passionately. She did it to him, her face smug before she screamed joyfully and fell to the bed, pure, erotic ecstasy wrapped in skin, bones, and childlike features. That face, that scream, they are in his mind now, destroying all thoughts of Catherine and what is the only love he will outwardly acknowledge: his occupation, his life. He stands from his seat, looks to the floor, curves his thumb and pointer finger around his forehead, and speaks:

"Catherine," he starts, and she looks at him strangely. He continues: "I've done something that I'm regretting."

"Yes?" her voice is as concerned and caring as it was before, but with slightly dubious – and maybe even accusatory – undertones to it. He tells her that she might want to sit, but she stands on the right side of the desk, leaning forward, fingers grasping the edge to help her keep balance, while he does the same on the left.

And he looks upon the scene before speaking and laughs morosely to himself as he realizes the symbolism in their stances.


	3. Through Evening and Eyes and Emergencies

Author's Note: Good morning, folks. I'll start my note by thanking: ibreak4csi, Just.Let.Go x3 Nisha14, Lizzy Sidle, blatfink, and Atia of Julii. Your reviews, as they usually do, made my day. Okay, so this is still unbeta'd, and I'm not sure when the next update will be. I'm having trouble writing Chapter Four (there will be, most likely, five chapters to this) and updating/writing stories in general. I apologize. It will be here eventually. Thank you again from reading and reviewing, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer (for both chapters): I would've used the song "I Touch Myself" by Divinyls in the last scene of "Way to Go" if I owned CSI.

Spoilers: A major one from "Way to Go" (6x24). I've warned you.

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Chapter Three: Through Eyes and Emergencies and Evenings

As the last syllables leave his mouth, she looks at him and graces her mouth with a bittersweet smile. She raises her eyebrows slightly – her signature gesture, he thinks – stands upright, and walks to his side, leaning somewhat to have her face level with the side of his. He wishes for a moment that she would kiss him there, removing any and all blatant signs of Sara's lips and replacing them with the subtle traces of hers. He swallows as he hears her speak: "So, what happens now?"

"I suppose I'll have to break off whatever smidgen of a sexual relationship I have with her before Conrad finds out and nails my ass to his desk like a trophy."

"And as funny as the irony of an ass nailing an ass to his desk and the visual of that might be," she says, words laced with laughter, "it's pretty obvious that we don't want Conrad to fire – or nail, I should say – your ass, whether it is figurative or literal."

"Obviously the man doesn't know about the seven deadly sins. Pride happens to be on that list. Along with," he swallows and continues, reluctant to say the words, "lust."

"Gil, this is probably one of the dumbest things you've ever done, but you're only human. And," she states as she places a hand on his arm, "I won't, unlike you, berate you endlessly for having a relationship that could interfere with your professional judgment, let alone compromise your job as a whole."

"Thanks for the pleasant reminder," he says sarcastically. "I appreciate your empathy."

"Only the best for you," she says, "in your time of need." Catherine stands, rubs him arm, and walks towards the door. "And by the way, if you need rescuing, don't hesitate to throw up a flare or set your Big Mouth Billy Bass on fire," she states before smiling once more and leaving the room.

"Hey," he calls to her just as she closes the door, "you got a match?" And he sees hears her laughter as she walks down the hallway.

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"Grissom!" calls a voice behind him as he reaches for the jacket hanging in the back of his locker. He drops it, mutters a curse under breath, and grasps the coat before turning to see Sara. Closing his locker before leaning against it, he has the leather jacket lying over his arm, the muscles tight with anxiety and shaking. He hopes she doesn't notice as he smiles, reservedly, at her. She walks toward him, a spring in her step, and proceeds to embrace him while he only manages to place his free arm around her back and pat her lightly on her shoulder blade. "Hi Sara," comes his voice with nervous undertones and a quaking tinge to it. He feels very awkward like this, hugging her, and releases from her hold just as she goes to fondle the back edge of his slacks. She seems slightly taken aback but allows him to move away and slide into his jacket.

"So," she begins, with him shivering slightly at how light and pure her voice sounds compared to that scream he heard from her just days ago, "are you free tonight?"

In his mind, he sees her sitting on the side of a white bath, stroking the water gently with a hand with dirty, short nails but smooth, white skin. Grissom sees the arm of her clothing and recognizes it as the robe she wore before, but the sleeves' edges are frayed, matching perfectly with the scars and scratches she has on her arm. His eyes continue scanning her body, seeing her long brown hair in a ponytail, her legs long but covered with scrapes and scabs, her narrow figure narrower and less developed, her feet clad in skin and dirt and nothing more. He sees all of this as she sees him and stands, stripping from the robe, which he notices is stained and looser on her, before it falls lifelessly to the floor. He removes his eyes from her body, staring at the floor made of light pink carpeting and covered with dried daisy petals, and as he sees another petal fall to the ground, he looks toward the ceiling and sees hundreds of flowers hanging by their stems, becoming browner by the second while more instantly appear for no apparent reason. He watches them blossom and die, appear and leave, grow and fade, before his concentration is broken by the feel of two hands against his chest, feeling his breathing, counting his heartbeat, and fingering his shirt to its tempo. He avoids her eyes, instead absorbing her anatomy, the ever so slight curve of her tiny breasts, the petite shoulders, the young neck muscled gently. She slips her hands off his body and places them atop of his, her tender flesh against his grainy skin, and she moves his hands upward until they rest on her chest. He swallows and tries to move away, but she surprises him by grabbing his wrists and forcing his hands to stay. The water is now spilling over the rim of the tub, falling to the floor and coming nearer to them, to him, and he feels it frigidity as it laps at his ankles, then his knees, his hips, his neck, all of the time while standing there with Sara forcing his hands to remain where she wants them to be. He feels the water rest below his lower lip, and he...

He ends the thought and breathes deeply through his mouth as he feels Sara's eyes on him, waiting for a response. "Uh, no, no, I'm not. But I'm not feeling too well. I was planning on just going home and settling in for the night."

"Well, I'll come home with you and, you know, keep you warm until you're feeling better. I've read that human contact is medicinal, although Ecklie may be an exception to that rule," she tells him as moves forward and places her hand on his check, letting his beard prick the tender skin on her palm and fingers. He gazes at her hand and notices the stubby nails and pink and healthy flesh, and he groans inwardly. He succumbed to her desire – was it because of the eyes, the anatomy, or everything together? he wonders – and is now having to live a life between lies. He doesn't love her romantically; he loves her paternally. He would just like to hold her hand and stroke her checks rather than pin her against a wall and caress her thighs. He just really wants to finger her hair and kiss her, lightly, friendlily, on the cheek instead of pulling her hair back to savagely nip at her neck like a hungrily lusting vampire. He doesn't want his actions to be harsh and hurtful; he wishes for them to be loving and healing.

He places his hand on hers, tender flesh against grainy skin in reality instead of a symbolic fantasy gone awry, and his eyes are wide – with fear? with tears? – while his face is narrow. He looks emaciated, that he knows, and he wonders for what he is so hungry.

"Sara, I would really just like to go home and be by myself for a while. I'm still adjusting to…this new arrangement," he says in a coarse voice, and as he removes her fingers from his face and tries to walk around her, she turns, stops, and places her hands on his chest. The bench in the middle of the already-narrow aisle presses into the back of his legs, and he feels his balance lessening.

"Gil," she begins, moving her mouth towards his ear, whispering, "please don't do this. Damnit, you could commit to this job for twenty years, but you can't even be involved with me for a week? This is all yours, Grissom, _all of it_." She slides her hands off his chest and places them on his, and proceeds to lift them to touch the slight curve of her waist. She wants – no, needs – him to feel it, feel _her_, feel the beauty, the energy, every patch of white skin under clothing's cover that he has already seen and that she wants him to see again. All of the curves sloping gently, dipping lightly, and creating room enough for his hands and the rest of him, too, because just as she needs him, she knows that he needs her as well. This is not a forced relationship, she thinks. It happened naturally, just like the blossoming of a breathtaking flower, with the wind planting the seed, with the rain of sexual tension unspoken but not unnoticed nourishing it, and with it finally growing into what it is now.

A flower like the one he had on his shirt that night, with the blue fabric and white plastic buttons she undid slowly, carefully, before pulling at the lapel to reveal broad, tan shoulders and a chest probably never seen by the eyes of any romantic lover before her – if there were any before her. She remembers running her hands down his sides and how he shivered so with an arousal foreign to his mind. She knows how he feels, because she knows, is certain, that when two people _love_ one another they feel the same about their love. She understands that they love with a love that is more than love and will do it forevermore. She is certain that she will love him until death do them part without a wedding because she is aware that a wedding is only a way to keep those in false love together and to allow them to mate and procreate and live in the misery and tedium of religion and tradition.

She removes her lips from their proximity to his ear, and she stares at him, at his eyes. His hands are still on her waist, hers still on top of them, and she moves them so that they now rest on her hips. "Gil," she begins, her entire body against the lockers, "show me that you can show your love for me, because I know I'm not the only one feeling things here."

Grissom looks her pleadingly, and his hands twitch; he truly wants to move them off her and just run. Somewhere, anywhere but here, in this position, with her and with the chances of being seen astronomical.

Before he loses his balance, he manages to pull his hands away from her body and move around her quickly. She tries to grab his wrist once more, but he is just out-of-reach as he sits on the bench and rubs his legs through his trousers where it pressed into the muscles. He lifts his right pant leg to reveal an angry red mark on the calf.

Sara sits next to him and murmurs roughly, "Gil, what the hell are you doing?"

He gazes at her, his face indifferent, and speaks poetically: "How can I show you my love if it is trapped in a home by the neon sea with my darling, my love, my Catherine Marie, who is coming to save me from thee?"

And he stands from the bench and walks, retrieving his cell phone from his pocket as he leaves Sara, mouth gaping and eyes raging, alone in the locker room.


End file.
